In July of 1996, Congress passed a mandate called HIPAA (Health
Insurance
Portability & Accountability Act). The purpose of this law was to
ensure
that consumers who had exhausted their 18 months of COBRA coverage or
who
were coming from a [true] group plan too small to offer COBRA, would
not
lose the ability to continue their health coverage, regardless of any
preexisting
conditions.

In theory, this was a great concept. However, what many people heard
when the president described this "guaranteed coverage" plan was only
those words:
guaranteed coverage. The part about "must have 18 months of continuous
coverage" (with true group
or COBRA being the most recent portion of that 18
months)
was rarely mentioned and overwhelmingly elusive for most consumers when
it was. What consumers were
not told - and what was downplayed in media
soundbites - was the fact that carriers could raise their rates as much
as 300-500% to compensate for covering people they would normally
decline.

The cost of coverage under the "portability law" was high, but at
least
the coverage was there: 15 years ago, a 22 year old with diabetes,
coming
off his parents' group policy but not working at a company with group
insurance,
would have found it nearly impossible (in some states, including
Arizona)
to get health insurance. Ditto the person who had had a heart attack,
stroke, or
been treated recently for cancer while on COBRA. There was no guarantee
of coverage
beyond
COBRA
for these people.

COBRA stands for Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. If
your employer had 20 or more full-time employees on his payroll, and
some
(or all) of them were on a group plan, he had to offer an extension
("continuation")
of the benefits of that plan, for 18 months (36 months in certain
situations).
If there were less than 20 employees on the payroll, COBRA was optional
(by employer),
but rarely was it offered and was not mandatory. The key here was the
number
of employees on the payroll, not the number of employees on the group
policy.
But in order to get COBRA, you had to be on the group plan, either as
emploee or dependent of an emploee. COBRA is still offered today and
can actually be less expensive than the new
plans under the helathcare reform guidelines.

Consumers believe that COBRA is expensive, that the carrier
increased
their rates on them. Not so. The premium charged under COBRA
reflects
the rate your employer was paying for your coverage, plus a small
administrative
fee (2%). On most group plans, employers pay from 40% to
75%
of the employee's portion of the premium, so rarely does the employee
know
what the true premium is -
until he elects to go onto COBRA, and that's when he see what the
actual premium was. All other
things being equal (which they rarely are), group insurance is the most
expensive, due to the number of members in the group across which the
carrier
must spread the cost of any claims paid out for those group
members. This is why just as many employers are dropping group
plans as
starting
them.

COBRA is not actually a new insurance policy but a short term continuation of
benefits, utilized most effectively by people who are undergoing
medical
attention at the end of their group coverage, who are pregnant or who
have
preexisting conditions that would make it hard - if not impossible - to
obtain health coverage otherwise. COBRA goes away after a specific
period
of time - 18 to 36 months, depending on certain situations (death of
the
primary, disability, divorce, etc). The introduction of the Affordable
Care Act took away the issue of qualifying for coverage after COBRA,
since the ACA guarantees coverage to those who can afford it and who
apply within the specific enrollment timelines.

If you can obtain health coverage elsewhere and especially if you
qualify for a tax subsidy, you generally do not want to take COBRA.
if you do take COBRA, then when it goes away you will have a sixty day
period following a loss of coverage "through no
fault of your own" (which the 18th month expiration of COBRA would
qualify as) to apply for new coverage. under new laws, you cannot opt
to take COBRA and then drop it during mid-year and get a private
policy. Otherwise, you must let it run its 18 months. Exceptions: if
you have other
"qualifying events" - move out of the coverage area, marriage, divorce,
new job,
etc. You can also drop a COBRA plan during the annual enrollment
period, which starts November 1st and runs through till January 31st.
Needless to say, as of
January 1 2014, no one kept a HIPAA plan if they had one; even with the
higher rates under healthcare reform, HIPAA was worse.

In a way, HIPAA plans were an extension of coverage in that
preexisting conditions were covered - as they are now under the ACA
(healthcare reform).

If you had group coverage through a company too small to offer
COBRA,
and you had major health issues, you could go right to HIPAA coverage
from the group plan,
providing
you could show that you had 18 months of continuous health coverage,
with the
most
recent coverage being group. Self-employed groups of one could not
qualify for
portability,
as portability benefits were designed for people coming from groups
which
had two or more employees. (In AZ, one carrier did extend HIPAA
coverage
to a group of one.) HIPAA plans went away in 2014.

One of the problems with portability was that, whenever someone's
coverage
ends - whether it is group or individual coverage, COBRA or short
term - that carrier must provide what is called a "Certificate of
Creditable
Coverage" to the insured. This letter confirms that the policy-holder
had
coverage from this date to that date, and that "[they] may be eligible
for guaranteed coverage under the Portability Act. " This letter did
not
guarantee coverage if going to a non-HIPAA individual plan. This letter
was so the individual can get "credit" for this coverage toward his 18
months
of continuous coverage requirement (it didn't matter what comprised
the
18 months of coverage, so long as it was true insurance and as long as
the
last coverage preceding portability was true group).

Please note that AHCCCS is not insurance - it is Medicaid
and tax-payor supported; there is generally no
premium.
And those inexpensive medical discount plans you see all over faxes,
e-mail and the papers.... are NOT insurance. Most "specified
benefit" plans -
plans
reimbursing you for various medical expenses - were sometimes referred
to as insurance plans but in fine print, one discovered they were not.

If your group coverage is
going away, you have several
options - COBRA or taking a plan under healthcare reform. Get hold of
your agent or a broker as soon as
you know you are losing group coverage to determine the least expensive
but best path for you. Federal law states
that any member of your family that was covered under your group plan
is eligible for COBRA, if the employer offers it, whether the
employee takes it or not. This is law and an employer who
refuses to cover a dependent on COBRA if the former employee does not
take it is subject to a pretty nasty fine. However, again - rates under
healthcare reform could be lower than COBRA rates, especially in a
multi-member family environment.